On the position of the POUM, shared by most of the more radical anarchists, like the Friends of Durruti, Orwell states:

Chronology

thumb|Telefónica building in Barcelona, which heralded the beginning of the May Events

Preliminary events

On 2 May, the Minister of the Navy and Air Force, Indalecio Prieto, telephoned the Generalitat from Valencia. An anarcho-syndicalist telephonist on the other side replied that in Barcelona there was no government, only a Defense Committee.

3 May

A force of 200 police officers, commanded by the Minister of Public Order of the Government of Catalonia, Eusebio Rodríguez Salas, went to the Telefónica central exchange and presented itself at the censorship department located on the second floor, with the intention of taking control of the building.

A crowd gathered in Plaça Catalunya, and at first it was believed that the anarchists had captured the head of the police. In the Telefónica building a truce was agreed and telephone communications, which were essential for war operations, were not interrupted. The police, installed on the first floor, even sent bocadillos to the anarchists, who occupied the upper floors. However grenades thrown from the rooftops blew up several police cars. The anarchists refused immediately.

4 May

On 4 May, Barcelona was a city plunged into silence, interrupted only by the fire of rifles and machine guns. Shops and buildings were covered by barricades. Anarchist armed groups attacked the barracks of the Assault Guards and government buildings. The government and communist militias returned fire. Fears started over a Civil War inside the Civil War. At eleven o'clock, the delegates of the CNT met and agreed to do everything possible to restore calm. Meanwhile, the anarchists Joan García Oliver and Federica Montseny launched an appeal on the radio to ask their followers to lay down their weapons and return to their jobs. Jacinto Toryho, the director of the CNT newspaper Solidaridad Obrera, expressed the same sentiment. Meanwhile, the 28th Division (former Ascaso Column) and the 29th Division of the POUM, commanded by Rovira, didn't cancel their proposed march on Barcelona until the head of the Republican Air Force in the Aragon front, Alfonso Reyes, threatened to bomb them if they pressed on with their plan.

5 May

Inside the Generalitat, Tarradellas, backed by Companys, still resisted the resignation of Artemi Ayguadé, which was demanded by the Anarchists. In the end, a solution was reached and Companys achieved a fragile truce between the different groups. To satisfy the anarchists' demands, the Catalan government would resign and form a new one without Ayguadé that would represent Anarchists, ERC, PSUC and Unió de Rabassaires.</blockquote>

Nevertheless, both the CNT-FAI and the FIJL refused to take part in the initiative of that group. At about five o'clock, the anarchist authors Camillo Berneri and Francesco Barbieri were arrested by a group of twelve guards, six of them members of the local police and the rest from the PSUC. Both were murdered during their arrest. In fact, the British feared that anarchists would take control of the situation, and talks occurred on evacuating foreign subjects from the city.

6 May

At dawn, the CNT once again asked the workers to return to their work to no avail although more out of fear than out of obstinacy. Assault Guards in Barcelona, Tarragona and many other cities proceeded to disarm and arrest numerous members of the CNT, FAI, Libertarian Youth and POUM who had taken part in the riots.

8 May

The streets returned to normality despite some isolated incidents, and the suppression of barricades began. The unrest in Barcelona had finally finished. The contemporary press estimated the death toll of 500 dead and 1,000 injured.

Casualties

There is little agreement as to the number of fatal casualties. The highest identified estimates point to "1.500 muertos para los revolucionarios y un centenar escaso para el PSUC y la fuerza pública", in total some 1,600 fatalities, provided by former Generalitat security councilor, Artemi Aiguader. The figure of "1,000 dead, and several thousand wounded" was coined in 1940 by an Anarchist exile Diego Abad de Santillán. The American historian Gabriel Jackson, writing in 1970, also notes "unas 1000 víctimas", though he cautiously admits that "que hay que calificar más bien en las categorías de asesinato o represalia que no en las de bajas militares", i.e. the figure might include also victims of later repression.

Numerous sources provide estimates which remain in the range of 400-600. On May 6, 1937, the Barcelona radio allegedly claimed 600 fatal victims. Reportedly "a contemporary press estimate of the casualties was 500 killed and 1,000 wounded", the figures somewhat endorsed in the global bestseller of Hugh Thomas (in all subsequent editions until 2012). In 1970 the Francoist scholar Ramón Salas Larrázabal noted cautiously "me inclino a pensar que fueron esas 498, aunque en verdad me parece cifra harto excesiva", and the same year the anti-Francoist essayist Manuel Cruells i Pifarré wrote "es va donar oficialment la xifra de 400 morts; es va parlar, sense desmentir-ho, de 500". However, the figure is referred unconditionally ("confused struggle that eventually cost some 500 lives") in some latest works, e.g. by the British military historian Charles Esdaile (2019). The prestigious scholar Javier Tusell settled for a range when referring (1998) to "el enfrentamiento, que hubo a causar 400 ó 500 muertos". The academic historian Julian Casanova in a compendium by a prestigious British publisher (2019) limits his narrative to noting that "the official casualty figures were 400 dead and 1,000 wounded"; the American patriarch hispanist Stanley G. Payne writes in another compendium (2012) that "possibly as many as 400 people were killed".

The lowest estimates point to 200-250 fatal casualties. Shortly afterwards, in mid-May 1937, the Barcelona daily newspaper La Vanguardia printed that "en total, pues, el número de muertos por dichos sucesos, según las actuaciones judiciales, es de 221". A very detailed examination, discussed in the monographic work by two Catalan academics Josep Solé i Sabaté and Joan Villarroya (1982), advances the figure of 235 and concludes: "en resum, la xifra total de víctimes a Barcelona és de 218, registrades, 4 de documentades per la premsa que no hem pogut localitzar, 1 documentada per la premsa i pel Registre del Diposit Judicial, i les 12 de Cerdanyola. És a dir, 235". Another monographic work on strength of conflicting sides and casualties by Manuel Aguilera (2013) opts for 218 and provides very detailed further breakdown. The independent researcher José Luis Garrot in one more monograph piece published a table with casualties broken down by day and political affiliation (2020); the total for Barcelona is 218.

Aftermath

The May Days had profound and long consequences. They showed that anarchists would not act with a single voice, unlike on 18 July 1936. A gap opened between the anarchist ministers, who were absorbed with winning the war, and the anarchist youth, who were above all obsessed by the triumph of the revolution. Also, very influential personalities like Escorza or García Oliver had lost control over their own followers.

The Generalitat of Catalonia, the communists and the central government seemed willing to act together against extremists by force, if necessary. The new Director of Public Order in Barcelona, José Echevarria Novoa, soon restored normality in much of the judicial system, but in that way, the communists could take more easily their crusade against the POUM. The republican authorities took no more measures against the CNT and the FAI because of their still-great power and their high level of popular support. The POUM situation was quite different, as the republican government soon outlawed the party, on 16 June, and arrested its main leaders, including Julián Gorkin and Andreu Nin. The POUM would disappear and the anarchists would never intervene in the war as before. Ultimately the internal disputes tore the republic apart and were a burden on its internal unity against the rebels.

Other consequences were the fall of the Government of the Victory, led by Largo Caballero, and the departure of the four anarchist ministers represented in it. It was also a clear victory of communist influence and power in the Spanish Republicans.

The May Days were mentioned in Ted Allan's 1939 novel This Time a Better Earth.

Films that portray the May Days events of Barcelona include Memorias del general Escobar (Memories of General Escobar), directed by José Luis Madrid and released in 1984, which tells the story of General Antonio Escobar Huertas and his role during the Spanish Civil War and the Barcelona Events, and the English film director Ken Loach's 1995 film Land and Freedom. George Orwell documented the May Days extensively in his book Homage to Catalonia, which details the event as a member of POUM.

The Spanish Netflix drama Cable Girls (2017) also portrays a dramatization of events of the May Days but is set in Madrid instead of Barcelona.

Notable victims

  • Andreu Nin
  • Camillo Berneri
  • Domingo Ascaso Abadía

See also

  • List of Spanish Republican military equipment of the Spanish Civil War
  • Anarcho-syndicalism

Notes

References

Bibliography

  • Aguilera Povedano, Manuel. Compañeros y camaradas. Las luchas entre antifascistas en la Guerra Civil Española. Editorial Actas. Madrid, 2012.
  • La guerra civil mes a mes, Tomo 13. Los sucesos de Barcelona (Mayo de 1937), varios autores, Grupo Unidad Editorial S.A., 2005 (obra completa) (Tomo 13).

Further reading

  • https://books.google.com/books?id=i5e7wRi-HGcC&pg=PA210
  • Documents on Barcelona May Days, 1937 from "Trabajadores: The Spanish Civil War Through the Eyes of Organised Labour," Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick.
  • The May Days: Barcelona 1937, Freedom Press, 1987.
  • Barcelona May Days Archive at marxists.org
  • Felix Morrow, Revolution and Counter Revolution in Spain, ch. 10, 1938
  • Pierre Broué, The Barcelona May Days from The Revolution and the Civil War in Spain, 1961